FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2007 file photo, people walk by the Time Warner Center in New York. Time Warner Inc. on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 said it has rejected a takeover bid from Twenty-First Century Fox and says it has no interest in further discussions with Rupert Murdoch's media entertainment giant. (AP Photo/Diane Bondareff, File) ORG XMIT: NYBZ199

Photo: Diane Bondareff

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2007 file photo, people walk by the Time...

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FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2012 file photo, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch speaks during a forum on The Economics and Politics of Immigration in Boston. Murdochs Twenty-First Century Fox on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 said Time Warner has rejected an offer it made last month to combine the two media and entertainment giants. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, File) ORG XMIT: NYBZ197

In a move that aims to counter consolidation among TV distributors, Rupert Murdoch's Fox has made an unsolicited takeover offer for rival media giant Time Warner for about $76 billion in cash and stock.

Time Warner rejected the bid, which amounted to about $86.30 per share, but an analyst called it just a first attempt in a courtship that would make the combined company as large as Disney in market value.

The rejected cash-and-stock offer comes on the heels of cable giant Comcast Corp.'s proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., which was made in February. It also comes after AT&T Inc. announced in May it agreed to buy DirecTV for $48.5 billion.

Both deals, if approved by regulators, would help shift the balance of power in content negotiations to distributors because of their larger subscriber bases, which could help contain rising programming costs for things like sports channels. After certain divestitures, Comcast could end up serving 30 million video customers, while AT&T would serve about 26 million.

A big merger among content owners would tilt the balance back toward the media companies.

"You can get more money negotiating together than you would separately," Janney analyst Tony Wible said. "It's a chain reaction. There will be more consolidation on the content side in response to consolidation from cable and satellite companies."

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Time Warner Inc., which owns the Warner Bros. movie studio and TV channels such as TNT, TBS and HBO, said Wednesday that it had no interest in further discussions and that it could create more value on its own.

Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., which owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio, Fox broadcast network, and TV channels Fox News and FX, said it made the bid last month, but said no discussions were currently ongoing.

In a video posted on its website, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the company's own business plan was "superior to any proposal that Fox is in a position to offer." The company also expressed concerns that Fox offered only non-voting stock, something that wouldn't give its shareholders a voice in the merged company.

Still, Time Warner's stock jumped 17 percent to $83.13 on the news Wednesday, and several analysts said that in an environment with cheap access to credit, Murdoch could easily push the bid above $100 per share and still make the deal work.

"It's the opening salvo," Wible said. "It underappreciates the value of Time Warner."